by Chris Parker
‘I have watched the people I work with learn and grow and change for the better. I improve the quality of life. I don’t take life. No one has the right to just take life!’
‘See! The change in you is already beginning.’ The killer’s voice dropped to little more than a whisper. ‘For as long as I have known you your arrogance has been vivid and obnoxious and impenetrable. Like an oil slick slashed with bright, abusive lines of colour. The same colours you would see if you put a shit-eating insect under a microscope. Your arrogance surrounded you. Even when you were silent it poured out of your skin. I hated being near you. I hated watching it reach out and draw people in. I hated the way it fed off the weakness of others. How could I not want to kill you? But now, already, it’s starting to diminish, to pull apart. If only you could see it. If only you could have seen it. You would have spent every waking moment trying to scrub yourself clean, I promise you.’
Marcus rolled his shoulders involuntarily. He wanted to speak, to ask another question, but words seemed a long way away.
‘I see the difference,’ the killer continued. ‘I see the difference between how you pretend to give something away and how nature truly does. I see how you fuel your own ego. I have actually seen it grow! And then I see the bright and gentle colours, the sharing and release every morning when night hands over to day. So many people travel to other places in the hope of seeing colours in the sky, when all they need to do if they want to see the real beauty of nature is know how to watch daybreak.
‘Of course, if they could do that, they would see all the other things, too. They would see you for what you really are. They would feel repulsed at the thought of being near you. They would vomit at the prospect of touching you. I assure you, I am not being lazy when I merge you altogether into the herd. I am protecting myself. When I watch people passing by I see so many versions of you that my senses can barely cope. I have to – had to – find a way to dull you all down. Insight, real insight, is a painful companion if you don’t find a way to leave it behind. In my lifetime I have had to learn how to stop looking and listening. Whereas you, you pride yourself on your training and skill and yet compared to me you are still blind. And if you knew the truth, if you had my experience, you would be grateful that you are.’
Marcus forced the breath up from his lower belly, forced his mouth to move, prayed that the words would come out as he needed them to. The sound of his voice was like the most precious gift. He felt tears in his eyes as he spoke.
‘Insight is meant to be used to help people. Whatever it is, however it’s used, insight is the basis for all positive change.’
‘And still you sound like a consultant!’ The killer snorted. ‘What you fail to understand living in your clearly-defined, simplistic world, is that when you really know how to look you see the colours on the fly as easily as you see the brightness of the sun. Only it doesn’t make you think the fly is beautiful – it gives you even more reason to destroy it.
‘When I let myself look at you, at any of you, you have nowhere to hide. I see everything. There is nothing you can keep hidden. No thought, no desire, no experience. You have no secrets.’ The killer paused to take breath. ‘Can you imagine how disgusting you all look to me?
‘Do you have any idea how you sound to me?’
‘I have no interest. Your hearing is as poor as your vision.’ The killer tapped Marcus on the right shoulder. The sudden physical contact sent a shockwave through his body. It stopped abruptly at his hips. Marcus gasped. The killer stepped back and waited, giving Marcus time to realise it for himself.
‘My legs…I can’t feel them.’
‘And all the time you thought you were standing there, keeping your back to me, because you had decided to. I told you, everything is working according to my plan, not yours.’
Marcus shook his head in disbelief. Somehow this man had hypnotised him so subtly that he had not noticed it happening, and yet so powerfully that he could no longer move. And he had always believed – always! – that a person could not be hypnotised against their will.
‘It can’t be against your will if you don’t know it’s happening,’ the killer said.
‘No!’ Marcus licked his lips. He was surprised how dry they felt. His stomach churned. He tried to hold back the growing tide of panic and despair threatening to overwhelm his gut. He needed to talk, to remind himself of who he was and what he knew. ‘No, you cannot be reading my mind. That isn’t possible. You can’t tell what someone else is thinking without the aid of visual or auditory cues. Whatever else you are, you are not a mind reader – not in the way you want me to believe. You might have been able to fool others, but I’m not like them.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ the killer’s tone was deliberately patronising. ‘And for once you are right. I’m not actually inside your mind. I’m simply standing here watching the colours change as your fear grows. Your thoughts have their own hue and they are as obvious to me – and more honest – than your words.’
‘And what do you see of yourself? What insights do you find there?’
‘I only ever look outwards. I have no desire for introspection. Explorers only ever look ahead.’
Marcus nodded. At least he had been right all along about the killer’s motive. ‘So you are searching?’
‘You should try it. If you did you might realise something very close to home.’
‘What?’ The question came out before Marcus could stop it.
‘Look down.’
The instruction was irresistible. Marcus looked at his legs and gasped. Blood was seeping from a wound in his right thigh. His trousers were sodden. The panic in his gut pulled low and then surged through him. He felt his insides twisting and turning uncontrollably as the panic raced upwards. Marcus vomited violently, spewing the contents of his stomach onto the lawn.
The killer waited until he finished retching. ‘See? I punctured your thigh with a scalpel and you felt nothing. I used a point to make a point. Well, two actually. The first is that I am better than you. In every way. You will die tonight and I do want you to die knowing you were never the best. The good news is that you now know you will only feel pain if I want you to. And I promise you – even you – that no matter what I do to you I will not cause you pain unless you try to do something stupidly defiant. Much as I despise you I am not a sadist.’
Marcus spat once, twice, trying to rid his mouth of the vile taste. It took a moment before he was able to speak again. ‘Is that how you are able to sleep at night?’, he said at last ‘By telling yourself that you are a pain-free murderer?’
‘We both know that you are clutching at straws. It’s a sign of the most extreme desperation when a person is grateful for even the most fragile support, just the briefest respite. We both know that, now don’t we?’
Marcus blinked. He felt himself rocking on his heels.
‘The truth is you can let go of everything,’ the killer continued. ‘Even the most recent of events can disappear beyond the horizon, and you can just float comfortably, supported by the power of your unconscious. Now or in a moment or two, or whenever you feel it most, you can just relax and float, feeling completely calm, letting the current drift you towards the one thing you can be sure of…’
Marcus blinked again. This time his eyes stayed closed. He felt them wanting to remain that way. He felt himself wanting to move into the darkness that was created. He forced them open.
‘That’s right,’ the killer nodded his confirmation. ‘I want you to keep your eyes open, to be able to see where you are going. Where I am going. You can drift down deeper later. For now just float on the surface and know that you will go deeper when I need you to. You do understand, don’t you?’
Marcus nodded. His tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. The trance wrapped itself around him, protecting him from the chill night air. Because the killer had not deepened it f
ully, a part of Marcus’s rational mind was still able to function. It was telling him that he would get one chance to break free – only one – and that he would have to take it if he was to have any hope of survival. The voice was faint. It kept drifting in and out of his awareness. It reminded him of the times he used to call Anne-Marie when she was abroad on photo shoots and how, in some places, the reception on the phone was always poor. It was a useful reminder. It was connected to so many things. The complexity of life is all around you, the voice said. It is your lifeline. Hold onto it.
If the killer heard the voice in Marcus’s mind, he didn’t comment on it. Instead he said, ‘It’s time to go inside now. We need to sit you down and move things along. Lead the way.’
Marcus did as he was instructed. He was able to walk without pain. He was vaguely aware that his thigh was damp and sticky. The voice in his mind threatened to break up completely as he moved towards the house. He strained to hear its final message. Look and listen, he heard, realising with a shock that it now was the voice of Anne-Marie. And remember…Her voice disappeared and then came back again. Remember…Now her words turned into muffled, indistinguishable sounds followed by silence as he opened the front door.
‘Please,’ he heard himself say as his tongue suddenly loosened from the roof of his mouth. ‘Please!’
It was enough to restore the connection. If only for a second. Anne-Marie’s final sentence was both a plea and an instruction. It reminded him of the most important thing of all. Of the one thing he was in danger of forgetting.
Remember that words are your weapon!
And then all contact with the outside world was lost.
53.
Marcus walked instinctively into the dining room. The killer placed a brown leather bag on the table. He pulled out a chair and gestured for Marcus to sit. He did. He realised that it was a chair he had never used before. Once sitting he felt that it was holding him in place. As if his body had been drained of the power to move. He considered it strange that he had never known this was the chair in which he was going to die.
He knew immediately that he could not allow himself to accept that.
He had no idea how to resist.
He wanted to speak, but he didn’t know what to say.
Not yet.
The killer crossed to the window and casually pulled the curtains together until they were almost touching. Through the slight gap Marcus could see nothing but darkness. It served as just another layer of separation.
I want you to see the darkness, just enough of it anyway,’ the killer said. ‘I think in your case it will be helpful.’ He returned to Marcus’s side and opened the bag, removing a roll of heavy duty, commercial adhesive tape. ‘I need to wrap this around you,’ he said. ‘It’s important for what I am going to do later that you really are very still.’
Marcus knew that now was the time to move. Before it became impossible to do so. Only it already felt impossible to do so. Even before the tape.
And then he realised that it didn’t matter.
As long as he wasn’t blindfolded or gagged he could still win this fight. Perhaps, though, he needed to frame it differently? Perhaps he had to stop thinking of this as a battle?
Yes! That was the key!
The thought raced through him like a slight but unmistakeable electric current. He had to define this on his own terms. Then he would be able to apply his skills; be resistant to whatever he saw or heard. For the first time the wound in his leg began to throb.
‘Nottingham is built on caves,’ the killer went on as he fastened Marcus in place. ‘I’m sure you know that. Personally I love that fact. It seems so appropriate given that most peoples’ lives are built on caves. Hollow. Empty. And they know it. They just choose to do nothing about it. That’s the part I can’t understand, that’s what makes me despise them. They choose to waste this golden opportunity. You know this. After all, you are the one who works with them! All you ever do, though, is help them build an extra layer above the cave. That is at best only a temporary solution. It leaves them with so little substance when you dig just below the surface. Although, of course, deep below the cave it is a different matter altogether. If you know how to look way, way beneath the cave, if you know how to reach the deepest places, then you will see the most glorious show. Well, I say “you” but I obviously mean myself. Even if I had taken you with me on my – what shall we call them? – research visits throughout this week, if I had let you stand next to me, if I had invited you to look, you would still only have seen the surface structure.’
Marcus forced himself to look and listen to the man who had killed Simon, who intended to kill him, as if he were a client.
He tried to force his sense of self, the place he was looking and listening from, to the very back of his head, as far away from his eyes as possible. He tried to get into that place from which he was always most aware, from which he always did his very best work. In his current state it was more than he could do to get there fully but he was, he recognised, closer to it than he had been since the encounter began; close enough at least to begin a response of his own.
‘Let me tell you the mistake you are making in the way you think.’ Marcus found his voice. ‘And it is a mistake that I understand fully, one that I have been guilty of myself. It’s simply this: however different you may be from the rest of us – and I accept that you are – you do inevitably share one thing in common. We are all built on caves. All of us. Even you. And I can see into you far more clearly than you can possibly believe, Ethan.’
Ethan Hall, the son of Samuel Hall, the man who had tended their garden and the willow tree for more years than they had lived in the house, stared down at him and bared his teeth in a harsh parody of a smile.
‘Are you hoping to create the first semblance of rapport by using my name? Is that it? Are you thinking you can connect with me and weaken me as you begin your fragile counter-attack?’
‘No. The caves inside you are far too dark and deep and dangerous for me to want to venture in.’ Marcus paused, watching the other man’s face intently, looking for every response no matter how minimal. He was starting the process of identifying patterns, of making associations. He was beginning to feel that he was moving out of the trance. ‘Besides you are far too aware to be taken in by something so obvious.’
‘So now you shift to flattery? What next, will you try and create in me a sense of obligation? Are you employing all those mundane tools they teach university students in an attempt to influence me?’
‘Ethan, no one is ever going to flatter you. Whatever you think about yourself, however you process things differently, the rest of us – those few anyway who ever hear of you – will just think of you as part of a very specific herd.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. You’re just an insane killer. That’s the pack you belong to. In the grand scheme of things there’s nothing very significant about what you do. You are not going to change the world. In fact you will be forgotten as soon as another one like you starts making headlines.’
‘You are wrong!’ Ethan screamed. He grabbed Marcus’s hair suddenly, pulling his head back, exposing and stretching his throat, lowering his face over him, staring into his eyes. ‘I can see and do what no one else can! I can see the colours of the universe in every movement, in every sound! I can taste your words! I can use space in ways that no one else does! I am –‘
‘- A synesthete.’
Marcus whispered the word. It was more than enough. Ethan released his grip and staggered back. He blinked two, three, four times before he was able to regain control.
‘How – How did you know?’ He stammered.
‘Because you have made no attempt to hide it from me. You have talked about it, boasted about it even, sure that I have never heard about the condition.’
‘It isn’t a condition! It’s a gift!’
Marcus studied Ethan’s face and his body language. He could see the effect his words were having. He guessed that the younger man had never been exposed in this way before. He knew how very difficult it was to talk for the first time about a deeply held secret. He remained silent, watching the turmoil rage inside the man who had been born a synesthete, learning everything that he could, recognising all the things that he had missed from their time together in the past.
Marcus Kline had first met Ethan Hall when his father, Samuel, started bringing him to work. The fifteen-year-old boy had expressed a desire to become a gardener, Samuel explained. He had a natural affinity with nature. For the next five or six years the pair had tended the garden together. The boy had been quiet and reserved. He had performed his tasks carefully and well. On occasions Marcus recalled him simply looking, unmoving for several minutes on end, at a flower, at the grass, at the willow tree. When asked what he found so fascinating, Ethan had simply shaken his head and gone back to work.
Suddenly and without warning, he had stopped coming. Samuel claimed that his son had taken the opportunity to work with a large and respected landscape gardening company in the South of England. Marcus had known that he was lying, but thought nothing more of it.